The terms of the record, defined.

Anti-access and area denial: capabilities meant to keep an adversary from entering a region or from operating freely within it. The term comes mainly from Western analysis and its usefulness is debated.

Summarising by generating new sentences that restate the source. It reads more naturally than extraction but can add details the source did not contain.

Rules and mechanisms that decide who may view or change which resources. Common models assign permissions by user role or by attributes of the user and the data.

Reporting shaped by the wish to keep access to powerful sources, which can soften coverage. The term is usually critical.

A strategic and economic goal for landlocked states, which seek ports or corridors through neighbours. It features in several long-running diplomatic claims.

Accession is the act by which a state becomes a party to a treaty it did not sign, usually after the treaty has closed for signature. It has the same legal effect as ratification.

Reviewing an account's creation date, past posts, followers and writing style to judge whether it is a real, relevant witness or an unreliable or inauthentic account.

Gaining control of a genuine account through stolen credentials or other means, so as to post as its owner or exploit its established audience.

Accreditation is the formal process by which a receiving state accepts a diplomat, or by which a state or organisation grants recognised status to a journalist or observer. It can be withdrawn.

A prompt that gets people to think about whether content is accurate before sharing it. Studies found small average reductions in sharing of false items, with effects varying by setting.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, which records political violence and protest events with date, place, actors and event type, drawing mainly on media and partner reports.

In international law, the acquisition of sovereignty through long, peaceful and uncontested exercise of authority. Its status as a mode of acquiring territory is debated.

A training approach in which the model picks the unlabelled examples it is most uncertain about and asks a human to label them. It aims to reach good accuracy with fewer labels.

A Soviet-era term for covert and overt influence operations, including forgeries, front groups and disinformation. It is still used by analysts to describe similar methods.

A construction in which the grammatical subject performs the action, as in "the army destroyed the building". It names the actor directly.

Activity-based intelligence is an approach that studies what happens at locations over time, such as vehicle counts or movements, and builds understanding from the patterns. It relies on repeat observations rather than single images.

An ad hoc tribunal is an international criminal court set up for a specific situation, such as those for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Its jurisdiction ends once its mandate is complete.

An attack on the person making an argument rather than on the argument. In public discourse it often takes the form of questioning motives or character.

An agreement that gives the IAEA wider access to information and sites than a basic safeguards agreement, improving its ability to detect undeclared nuclear activity. Adoption is voluntary for each state.

Adjudication is the process by which disagreements between coders are resolved, often by a third reviewer or by discussion, to settle the final label.

An administrative level is a tier in a country's territorial hierarchy. In common GIS naming, ADM0 is the country, ADM1 the first subdivision such as a state or province, and ADM2 the next level down.

A two-part grading system, also called the Admiralty system or NATO system, that rates a source's reliability from A to F and the information's credibility from 1 to 6. A grade such as B2 pairs a usually reliable source with probably true information.

A grading scheme that rates a source's reliability on a scale from A to F and the credibility of its information on a scale from 1 to 6. It is also called the NATO system or Admiralty code.

ExampleA rating of B2 means a usually reliable source and information that is probably true.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast: a system in which aircraft broadcast their identity, position and speed, which anyone with a receiver can pick up.

A well-resourced hacking group that maintains long-term, stealthy access to targets, often linked by researchers to a state. Group names differ between security firms and do not always map cleanly.

Special commands in search engines, such as restricting results to a domain, a file type or an exact phrase, that let researchers refine queries.

ExampleRestricting a query to a government domain and the PDF file type is a typical use.

A party whose interests oppose one's own and whose actions an intelligence effort tries to understand. The term does not by itself imply open hostility.

A funding approach in which the outlet earns mainly from advertisers, who pay to reach its audience. It rewards audience size and can shape editorial choices.

Paid content designed to look like editorial material. Rules in many countries require it to be labelled as advertising.

An advisory opinion is a legal opinion given by a court such as the ICJ at the request of an authorised body. It is not binding as a judgment, though it carries legal and political weight.

Growing dislike and distrust between political groups, measured by feelings toward opponents rather than by differing policy views.

The African Union is a continental organisation that replaced the Organisation of African Unity in 2002. It is based in Addis Ababa and can suspend members after unconstitutional changes of government.

In text analysis, who is shown as the actor that causes events. Choices about agency affect where readers place responsibility.

Example"The protesters clashed with police" shares agency; "police charged the protesters" places it on one side.

Text supplied by a news agency for outlets to publish or adapt. Identical passages across outlets usually come from shared agency copy.

The way the amount of coverage a topic gets shapes how important audiences think it is. Framing then shapes how they think about it.

In intelligence usage, a person who works for an intelligence service but is not one of its staff officers. This differs from the common use of the word for any spy.

Leaving out the person or body responsible for an action, most often through the passive or a nominalisation. The event is reported but the actor is not named.

Example"Twelve civilians were killed" does not say by whom.

A service that collects headlines or excerpts from many outlets in one place. It adds no original reporting and its ordering rules shape what readers see.

A Soviet-era contraction of agitation and propaganda, referring both to the party department that ran such work and to short, emotive political art and messaging.

A system in which a language model plans and carries out a series of steps, calling tools and reading their results, to complete a task with limited human input. Errors can compound across steps.

Work aimed at making an AI system's behaviour match the goals and values of its developers and users. Techniques include training on human feedback and rules for refusals.

A tool that estimates whether a text or image was machine-generated. Such tools give both false positives and false negatives, so their scores are weak evidence and can unfairly flag human writing.

Deliberately trying to make a model produce harmful, false or unsafe output in order to find weaknesses before release. Testers play the role of an attacker or a careless user.

Informal term for low-quality AI-generated content mass-produced to attract attention or revenue, regardless of accuracy.

Text, images, audio or video produced largely by a generative model. It can be harmless or deceptive, and its presence alone does not show that the claims in it are false.

The theft or redirection of humanitarian supplies away from their intended recipients, by armed groups, officials or criminals.

Measures and systems used to detect, deter and destroy hostile aircraft, missiles and drones, ranging from short-range guns and missiles to long-range surface-to-air systems.

A degree of control of the air that lets one side operate without prohibitive interference from the opponent's air force. It is a narrower condition than total control of the air.

An operation that moves forces by air and delivers them into an area, by parachute or by landing aircraft and helicopters.

A national register of civil aircraft that links each registration mark to an aircraft and a listed owner or operator. It is a common starting point for tracing an aircraft.

Automatic Identification System: a transponder system that broadcasts a vessel's identity, position and course. It is required on many larger ships, and gaps or false positions may indicate trouble or concealment.

An AIS gap is a period when a vessel's transmissions stop for longer than usual. Causes include poor coverage, equipment faults, deliberate switch-off and interference, so a gap alone does not show intent.

ExampleA gap in a coastal area with weak receiver coverage is weaker evidence than a gap right after leaving port.

How much attention a story is demanding: 1 Elevated, 2 Critical, 3 Systemic. Each tier has a stated rule, for example two Tier 2 alerts within 60 minutes raise Tier 3.

An external or internal examination of how a ranking or recommendation system behaves, for example by testing outputs with sample accounts.

The extra reach content gains when ranking or recommendation systems promote it because of predicted engagement or other signals. It is distinct from coordinated amplification by users.

The selection and ranking of content for users by automated systems, in place of or alongside human editors.

A state's pattern of cooperation with others on security and foreign policy, ranging from formal alliance to loose partnership.

Analysis that draws on every available discipline, including human, technical and open sources, rather than a single one. Cross-checking between sources is its main advantage.

A formal or informal agreement between states to cooperate on security, often with a commitment to support one another in conflict.

A technique that develops several plausible scenarios for how a situation might evolve, instead of a single forecast, and identifies signposts for each.

An ambassador is the senior diplomat who heads an embassy and represents the sending head of state. An ambassador is accredited to a particular state, and a chargé d'affaires may lead the mission when the post is vacant.

An amnesty is a legal measure that removes the possibility of prosecution or punishment for specified acts. International law limits amnesties for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, a position that some states dispute in practice.

A military operation launched from the sea by naval and landing forces to project power ashore.

The increase in a story's audience when it is picked up, shared or repeated by other outlets or accounts. Debunking can also amplify a false claim.

A comparison between two situations to argue that what holds for one holds for the other. Analogies in news and politics often draw on historical events.

The stage in which analysts evaluate processed information, test explanations against it and write judgements in a product for a specific reader.

A technique, developed by Richards Heuer, in which analysts list several explanations and test each against the evidence, giving most weight to evidence that disproves a hypothesis rather than confirms it. It is often shortened to ACH.

A rhetorical figure in which successive clauses begin with the same words. Note that linguists also use the term for a word that refers back to an earlier one.

Example"We will rebuild. We will recover. We will return."

Anchoring is the tendency for an initial number or suggestion to pull later estimates toward it, even when it is irrelevant. Forecasters can reduce it by forming their own range first.

The tendency to rely too heavily on the first information or estimate encountered, and to adjust too little when later evidence points elsewhere.

The formal incorporation of territory into another state, often unilaterally. Annexation by force is generally regarded as unlawful under modern international law.

Annotated imagery is an image marked with labels, arrows and outlines to point out features of interest. Annotations carry a judgement, so the unmarked image and its metadata should be available alongside.

Annotation is the labelling of data by hand, for example marking each article's topic or each statement's stance, to create reference data for analysis or model training.

A reading two or more spreads from its baseline. It is flagged for you to examine. It is confirmed only when physical telemetry agrees.

Anomaly detection is the use of statistical or learning methods to flag observations that depart from an expected pattern, usually a baseline that allows for trend and seasonality.

Altering data so that individuals can no longer be identified, by any means reasonably likely to be used. Removing names alone is often not enough, since combinations of other details can re-identify people.

A person who gives information on condition that their name is withheld. Responsible outlets set rules for when this is allowed and how the source is described.

A system built to damage or destroy satellites, either by direct impact or by other means. Destructive tests create debris that can threaten other spacecraft.

A guided missile designed to attack surface vessels, launched from ships, aircraft, submarines or the shore.

Anticipatory self-defence is the claim that force may be used against an imminent attack before it occurs. Its limits are contested, and wider claims of pre-emption against less immediate threats are widely disputed.

The antimeridian is the line of 180 degrees longitude, opposite the prime meridian. Shapes that cross it can break or wrap incorrectly in software that does not handle the jump.

A figure that sets contrasting ideas side by side in balanced phrasing, as in "to err is human, to forgive divine".

A word with the opposite meaning to another, such as "increase" and "decrease". Pairing antonyms is a common way to build contrast in a headline or argument.

Application programming interface: a defined way for one program to request data or actions from another. Web APIs typically return structured data such as JSON in response to HTTP requests.

Of doubtful authenticity, though widely repeated as true. An apocryphal quote or anecdote has no solid trace to the person or event it is credited to.

An appeal is a request that a higher court review a lower court's decision for legal or factual error. A successful appeal can uphold, change or overturn the ruling.

An argument that a claim is true because an authority says so. It is a fallacy when the person lacks relevant expertise or when expert opinion is divided.

Example"A famous actor says the treatment works."

An argument that relies on stirring feelings such as pity, anger or pride in place of offering evidence for the claim.

An argument that tries to win agreement by raising fear of a threatening outcome, whether or not the threat is likely.

An argument that a claim is true or a choice is right because many people believe it or do it. It is also called the bandwagon appeal.

An argument that something is right or better because it has long been done that way.

A record to which new entries can be added but existing entries cannot be edited or removed. It suits audit and history keeping.

A framework for analysing how texts express evaluation, covering attitude (feelings and judgements), engagement (the voices admitted) and graduation (strength of the evaluation).

The League of Arab States was founded in 1945 and is based in Cairo. It coordinates political, economic and cultural cooperation among its member states and issues resolutions by vote of its council.

The settlement of a dispute by a tribunal chosen by the parties, whose ruling is binding on them. It is used for some border and maritime disputes.

A state made up wholly of islands, which may draw baselines around the outermost points of its outermost islands under set conditions and claim the waters enclosed.

Older recorded material reused in a new report. It should be labelled as such, since viewers can take it for current events.

A stored copy of a web page captured at a specific moment by an archive service such as the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Snapshots can be incomplete or miss dynamic content.

The geographic area assigned to a commander in which a force carries out its mission and exercises control.

Organised violence involving armed force between states, between a state and an armed group, or between armed groups. Legal and dataset definitions differ on the intensity and organisation needed before a situation counts.

A formal agreement by warring parties to cease hostilities, usually more binding than a ceasefire but short of a peace treaty.

A line fixed by an armistice agreement that halts fighting. By its terms it generally does not settle sovereignty.

Agreements and measures that limit the types, numbers, deployment or use of weapons so as to reduce the risk and costs of arms competition and war. It differs from disarmament, which aims to eliminate weapons.

The methods used to check whether parties are complying with an arms control or ceasefire agreement, such as inspections, remote sensing and data exchanges.

The transfer of weapons from their authorised user or destination to an unauthorised one, through theft, resale or corruption.

A prohibition, imposed by the UN, a regional body or a state, on supplying weapons and related items to a country or group. Monitoring panels often report on violations.

A pattern of competitive build-up of military capability between rival states, each responding to the other.

The sale, gift or other movement of weapons and military equipment between states or to non-state actors. Illicit or diverted transfers are a concern for conflict monitors.

The Artemis Accords are non-binding principles for civil space exploration, launched in 2020 by the United States with partner states. Some states see them as a route to shaping new norms, and others have preferred UN-led processes.

The clause of the North Atlantic Treaty under which an armed attack against one NATO ally is considered an attack against all, and each ally takes the action it deems necessary. It has been invoked once, after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

Large-calibre weapons, such as guns, howitzers, mortars and rocket launchers, that deliver indirect fire at long range. They remain a main cause of casualties in many conventional wars.

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was founded in 1967 and is based in Jakarta. It operates by consensus and non-interference in members' internal affairs.

Sentiment analysis that scores attitudes toward specific parts of a topic, not the text as a whole.

ExampleA review praising a phone's screen and criticising its battery gets one score for each.

A person, often an agent or source, who provides information or help to an intelligence service. The term can also mean a technical collection system.

A sanction that prohibits dealing with the funds and property of designated persons or entities, which are blocked but not seized.

A task given to a reporter or photographer to cover a particular event or subject. Assignments are usually set by an editor or desk.

Orchestrated activity made to look like a spontaneous grassroots movement. The name comes from a brand of artificial grass.

ExampleDozens of near-identical reviews appear from new accounts on the same day to suggest broad local support.

Protection granted by a state to a person who has fled persecution in another country. States decide individual claims under their own procedures within international obligations.

A person who has applied for protection as a refugee and whose claim has not yet been decided. Not every asylum seeker is recognised as a refugee.

Conflict between parties of very unequal strength or type, where the weaker side avoids the opponent's strengths and targets its vulnerabilities, for example through guerrilla tactics, terrorism or cyber operations.

A web feed format, standardised as RFC 4287, that serves the same purpose as RSS with a stricter specification. Many sites offer both.

A mechanism that lets a model weigh how relevant each part of the input is when computing the representation of another part. It allows distant words in a text to influence each other directly.

The view that human attention is a scarce resource that platforms and publishers compete to capture and sell, often rewarding content that holds attention over content that informs.

An attribute table lists the descriptive fields attached to each feature in a layer, such as a name, population or date. Each row corresponds to one geometry.

The process of assigning responsibility for an action, such as a cyber intrusion or an influence campaign, to an actor, with a stated level of confidence. The evidence is often circumstantial, and it is a separate question from legal attribution of conduct to a state.

Attribution in law is the test for whether conduct counts as an act of a state, for example because it was carried out by its organs or by persons acting on its instructions or under its control. It is a legal question, separate from technical or intelligence attribution.

A verb that introduces reported speech, such as "said", "claimed" or "admitted". The choice signals how much the writer trusts the speaker.

Example"The minister claimed" casts more doubt than "The minister said".

A strategy of wearing down an opponent through sustained losses in personnel, equipment and supplies. Wars described as attritional tend to reward the side with greater reserves and industrial capacity.

AUC is the area under the ROC curve. It equals the probability that a randomly chosen positive case is scored higher than a randomly chosen negative one, with 0.5 meaning no better than chance.

The proportion of viewers or listeners tuned in at a given time who are watching a particular programme or channel.

The examination of recordings to assess authenticity, edits, background sounds and speaker characteristics. It is used to check whether a recording is continuous and unaltered.

A visual plot of how the frequencies in a recording change over time. It can reveal edits, background noise changes or splices that are hard to hear.

A chronological record of actions taken in a system, such as who accessed or changed a record and when. It supports review, accountability and incident investigation.

Content that is genuine in itself but presented with a false or incomplete context, such as a real photo from another event. Authentication alone does not settle whether a claim is true.

ExampleA real photo of a crowd from 2015 is shared as if it showed this week's protest.

Establishing that an item, such as a document, photo or recording, is genuine and was made by whoever or whenever it claims. A genuine item can still be misleading in how it is used.

Estimating who wrote a text by comparing its style and content against known writing samples. Results are probabilistic and can be spoofed by deliberate imitation.

Autocorrelation is the correlation of a series with a lagged copy of itself. Positive autocorrelation means high values tend to be followed by high values.

A degree of self-government granted to a region or group within a state, short of independence.

Availability bias is the tendency to judge something as common or likely because examples come to mind easily, often because they were widely reported.

A self-reinforcing process in which repetition of a claim in public discourse makes it seem more plausible and more important, prompting further repetition. The term comes from Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein.

The habit of judging how likely something is by how easily examples come to mind, which overweights vivid or recent events.

An azimuth is a horizontal angle measured clockwise from north, from 0 to 360 degrees. It is used for the direction of a point, and also for the direction of the sun when judging shadows.

An azimuthal projection projects the globe onto a plane touching one point, preserving direction from that centre. Maps centred on a pole or a city for range rings often use this family.